“Not your first time here, at any rate, Lord Dal,” the Steward said with the ghost of his usual smile on his lips.
Dal tilted his head with a smile of his own. He felt and recognized the need for normal conversation in these most abnormal times. “I barely remember that event,” he said. The Steward gestured, and Dal preceded the man through the gateway. “I was four when my father became head of his Household, and I came with him to give his oaths to the Tenebroso, and to the old Tarkin.”
The Steward made a half-aborted motion with his right hand, and Dal coughed. So it was better not to mention even Tek-aKet’s father, was it?
“I wasn’t Steward then,” the man said. “I don’t believe I remember your father.”
“He was only in Gotterang once more. In fact, he died on his way home from that last visit to the Tenebroso. Fell from his horse.”
“You became Household then? Or was there an older sibling?”
“No, I was Kir for my Household, but at eight years old, my House thought it better to put a Steward in place and brought me to her in Gotterang.” No need to tell the Carnelian Dome’s Steward of Keys that such young children were used as hostages; the man well knew that for himself.
“And, of course, you’ve been here ever since. Once in the capital, who would want to leave?”
Dal smiled, his lips pressed tightly together. Ever since. Ever since his father, who must have guessed something about that summons from which he never returned, had kissed him good-bye whispering, “Stay alive, Son. See you survive to avenge me.”
Still alive, Papa, he thought. Accomplishing that much at least.
“It must have been strange for you,” the Steward said, as he opened the third set of double doors for Dal to walk through. “I remember being very homesick when I first came here as a child.” Dal stood to one side as two pages, heads down and mumbling their excuses, came stumbling through the opened door.
“Not exactly homesick. Though there were no children my age in Tenebro House,” he said, after the young pages were out of earshot. “And I’m afraid I found my cousin Lok-iKol very… impressive.”
The Steward of Keys, with a glance at Dal’s face, nodded his quick understanding.
At first, Dal had been too shocked by grief and the change in his circumstances to remember his father’s last words to him. Afterward, he’d needed to be sure that it wasn’t just homesickness and an aversion to Lok’s company that made him want to kill his one-eyed cousin. The longer he waited, the harder it became to do anything. If he killed Lok openly, he would be killed himself. Failing in his father’s first command to him. If he killed Lok by stealth, he’d become the heir, something he’d never wanted-still didn’t want. So he’d spent years studying the situation, gathering information, in part to protect himself, in part to find a safe way of enacting his father’s vengeance. All in all, he’d been gathering information for a long time.
When he’d realized just why Parno Lionsmane had seemed so familiar, only the iron discipline of years had stopped him from running singing through the House. He’d thought all his problems were solved. As kidnapped Mercenary Brothers they would kill Lok, and as a first cousin, Par-iPar Tenebro would set aside his Mercenary Brotherhood, become heir, and Dal could finally go home.
But the Brothers were gone, and Lok was now Tarkin.
“My lord.” The Steward of Keys motioned Dal to one side. Approaching them down the corridor were three individuals dressed completely in dark green, escorted by two guards in Tenebro colors and two Jaldean priests. From the corner of his eye, Dal looked at the Steward’s impassive face. For it was clear from their air of stumbling confusion that something had been done to these Marked. One of them, a short stout woman, was supporting a man almost twice her height, holding him around the waist. She merely looked red-eyed and blotchy, tears still rolling down stiff cheeks, but the man was vacant-eyed and drooling. The third, perhaps their son, was white as paper, and breathed shallowly as if in great pain.
“I thought the Marked were being taken to the Jaldean High Shrine,” Dal murmured to the Steward of Keys.
“Last night the new Tarkin gave orders for them to be brought here,” the Keys said. Something in the man’s voice made Dal look at him closely, but the Keys kept his eyes lowered. His lips, Dal saw, were trembling.
Once the Marked had passed, Dal and the Steward of Keys fell silent. They continued down the hall until it widened before the delicately carved doors of the Cedar Room, the small audience chamber. Here, there were comfortable cushioned chairs set out for waiting dignitaries, grouped around small empty tables that normally carried jellied fruits, salted nuts, and carafes of wine and cider. The place, usually crowded with petitioners and the younger children of the Noble Houses, was deserted.
Suddenly, Dal didn’t want to go any farther.
“If you would wait a moment,” the Keys of the Dome said. “I will see if the Tarkin is ready for you.”
Dal sank into one of the cushioned chairs. Once again he reminded himself that Lok need not bring him to the Dome to kill him. So what did Lok want? Dal thought about the message he’d received this morning from Karlyn-Tan, that the former Steward of Walls could be found at the Blue Dove Tavern. And where, Dal wondered would Gundaron the Scholar and the Lady Mar-eMar be found? Dal did not believe for a moment that the two had anything to do with the Fall of the House, but it was evident that Lok wanted them, and that meant Dal might gain something by finding them himself.
Lok had asked Karlyn-Tan to find the Mercenary woman, and the Steward of Walls had refused and been Cast Out. Was Dal now about to be asked? And if he refused? What would Lok do then?
The Keys pushed both doors of the small audience room open, gone so pale that his mustache and eyebrows stood out dark against his skin. “You may go in, Lord Dal-eDal.” He gestured toward the open doors.
Stomach twisting, wishing he had the courage to simply turn and walk away, Dal went through.
Whatever he’d expected to find, it wasn’t Lok in what was clearly the Tarkin’s great chair-carved out of white cedar, studded with carnelians, and just smaller than the official throne-talking to Chief Counselor Gan-eGan. Dal hovered, unwilling to approach more closely. The older man was on his knees on Lok’s right side, his hands clinging to the arm of the great chair, as a man in the sea clings to the side of a raft. Dal licked his lips and took a hesitant step forward.
With a soft sigh the counselor stood, lifting a trembling hand to his mouth, sketched a shaky bow, and headed for the door. Dal actually had to step out of the man’s way, as Gan-eGan-usually so punctilious it was almost laughable-passed him without acknowledgment of any kind.
“Cousin.” Lok’s voice was curiously flat, as if he was too tired to speak with more animation. Perhaps he’d found being Tarkin to be more work than he’d expected, Dal thought as he crossed the floor to his cousin’s side. He performed a more elaborate version of the counselor’s bow and straightened, forcing a smile to his lips.
“All is well at the House,” Dal said. “Tenryn-For is settling well into his duties as Walls.” As well as he can after less than twenty-four hours, and after Karlyn-Tan’s Deputy Jeldor-San had unexpectedly refused the post.
Lok nodded, but with an air of a man who is listening to something else. He got to his feet and gestured to Dal to fall in beside him as he walked toward the smaller, private door behind the great chair.